I used to not like people, it's true. I used to think people as a whole were selfish and unkind creatures... until I started doing this work I do.
As I started to coach and teach sweet souls from all over the world, I learned something pretty life altering: we all want to be of service, leave a mark that makes the world a better place, and help people in a very specific way.
Every single one of us.
What that work looks like is unique and incredibly personal. It stems from our own journey and story and the ways we've been hurt. As Sean Corne said in the film Yoga Is, "find your pain and you'll find your purpose." We're all uniquely qualified to be of service in exactly the way we feel called. It's been truly humbling to coach and teach and support so many brilliant beings as they step into their work.
But this work, it asks a lot of us.
"I exist in this life in service of very specific work," I said a week ago, fighting through the lump in my throat as tears began to form, "sometimes that work just asks a lot of me."
I don't believe in painting pretty pictures of places that don't exist. In acting as if everything is always shiny and happy and easy breezy. The truth is that doing work that's in service of others is hard at times. Fulfilling, life changing, and even phenomenal for your bank account, but challenging and soul stretching in ways you don't know until you know.
Devotion is a word that landed in my lap a couple years back. Devotion to our work and our callings, the things that light us up from deep inside our soul. Devotion is a word that changed my business and brought me more focus and clarity than I've ever known.
I'm devoted to this work.
My life is in service of it and is no longer just my own.
The work pulls and tugs at me. It moves through me and uses me in ways I never imagined I'd be used. It takes me to places I never thought I'd venture, with people I never thought I'd know. And this work, it asks a lot of me.
It asks me to show up in ways I'm not ready, to bare my soul and put everything out there for others to see and learn from. It asks me to walk into some of the darkest spaces of this life and feel things that most people spend years tucking neatly away. It asks me to let go of all that I know so that I can tumble into the unknown. So I can create what I'm meant to create. It asks me to pick up the sledgehammer, time and time again, and tear apart all that I've built so that I can be more deeply rooted in the pain, allowing me to connect with others in the ways I need to.
Honestly, sometimes this work feels like it's peeling little slivers off my soul and sending them out to the world and those who need what I have to give. And sometimes I wonder if anything at all will be left of me when I'm old... but if there's nothing left, I will be grateful to have been spent in the ways I've been asked to give myself to those around me. I will be grateful to know that I served a purpose, if even for just one sweet soul who needed me.
This my friends... this is not easy.
People ask me how I got to the place where I'm so comfortable sharing so much of myself online, and I always laugh, because I'm not comfortable. I'm constantly uncomfortable. I'm constantly being asked to share things that make me feel terrified and exposed. I piss people off with my deepest truths, with being who I am. I am stretched and torn and broken in ways that hurt like hell. I'm pushed into spaces I'm not ready to be standing.
This work, it asks a lot of me.
But I'm devoted.
I'm purpose driven.
And I, like you, am here to be of service.
So if you're ready to step into the work you feel called to do and you're feeling scared, that's okay. It's normal. It means you have a lot to give and so very much to contribute to this crazy world of ours. This work will ask a lot of you, and it will be challenging at times, but there are no words to describe how absolutely worth every soul stretching moment it is. There are no words to describe what it's like to see your work and words land on someone in just the right way, and you see something click in side of them. No words for the moments where people thank you for being you, and sharing all that you have to share.
We need you to do the work you're here to do. Whatever it is. Wherever you feel called. With whomever you desire to support.
We are desperate for it.
So take a deep breath and lean into what calls and tugs and pulls at you. Stretch your edges just a little bit further with everything you do, learning to find comfort in the discomfort. Put yourself out there and risk the rejection, push back, and piss people off in the process. Let the work move through you and use you up until you're spent in the most fulfilling of ways.
You are needed, just as you are, in exactly the way you feel called.
Stephenie Zamora is the founder of www.stepheniezamora.com, a full-service, life-purpose development, design and branding boutique and author of Awesome Life Tips book. Through her Mastery program, she merges the worlds of personal development and branding to help men and women build passion-based lives and businesses they love. Click here to access her free Foundations for Unshakable Joy™ video training series and learn the unexpected trick to transforming your life with one single question!
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